Acceptance
by UntoldStories113
Summary: It was rare for Joy to actually TELL Sadness to drive. (Part 3 of the Whimsical Affinity series. Written pre-movie, though you might still want to avoid this if you're steering clear of spoilers.)


**Timeline note:** Set before Riley's family moves to San Francisco.

 **Note:** This was supposed to be humor, but I guess you can't write a Sadness POV and _not_ label it Angst, huh?

* * *

It was rare for Joy to actually _tell_ Sadness to drive.

Sadness had to wait for her to stop sneezing first, of course, but she knew as well as Joy did that the others were in no condition to man the console at the moment. Not with the state they were in.

"You know you shouldn't make her cry, right?" Joy drawled, a noticeable twang in her voice, and drew the blanket tighter around her shoulders with a slight sniffle.

"I'll take care of her," Sadness assured her, staying a good ways away from the others sitting on the sofa, just like Fear had begged her to. If she caught a cold now, too, there'd be no one left to watch Riley. And the girl _needed_ them right now. She hated having a cold.

"Or, er, get depressing thoughts or make her contemplate the unfairness of life?" Joy continued, slightly narrowing her eyes in what looked like worry.

"I'll take care of her," Sadness repeated flatly, trying not to burst into tears herself at being reminded of just _how_ incapable Joy was of empathizing.

"She needs to stay rested," Fear instructed for the fifth time, warily regarding the cup in his hands as if trying to decide whether it had cooled down enough for him to drink, "and warm, and properly moisturized, and she needs to blow her nose regularl-…"

" _Thank you_ ," Disgust cut him off, visibly trying not to vomit all over the sofa, "we get the picture!"

Sadness resisted the urge to go over and pat her shoulder in sympathy. Whenever Riley got sick, Disgust was hit the hardest, though that was less due to the actual sickness and more because of her revulsion at the symptoms that came along with it.

"I think you should all go lie down," Sadness suggested quietly, although she knew, of course, that Joy wasn't going to let her stay at the console all on her own.

"Actually, I should just…" Fear began and started shrugging off his blanket, but yelped when he was forcibly dragged back by his collar.

" _Stay down_ , idiot!" Anger boomed, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes with his free hand. The flame on his head was slightly out of control, sizzling away happily, raising the temperature in all of Headquarters and drying up the air in the process. "Bad enough you let it come to this! Don't make it worse now!"

"Don't fight," Sadness whimpered, wringing her hands. "I… I can handle this, right?"

"Well, _get_ to it, then!" Anger snarled, redirecting his fury at her. "What are you standing around for?"

"We, um… we believe in you!" Joy claimed, which didn't sound all that convincing. But with a sigh, Sadness reminded herself that at least Joy was _trying_ today. Even though it _was_ only because she didn't have a choice.

Turning around, Sadness cautiously approached the console. The rain still obscured most of Riley's vision, but for now, she was safe under the roof of the small bus stop. She'd been standing there for a while, though, her steadily deteriorating health evident in the conditions of her Emotions, and the storm showed no signs of letting up, so it was definitely time to get home. At least she didn't have far to go anymore.

With a sigh and the press of a button, Sadness sent her out into the rain again, and felt a little guilty about it when the field of view got smaller as Riley narrowed her eyes against the oncoming assault of raindrops.

Then Riley was running, and from there, Sadness wasn't sure what to do. Joy had told her not to make Riley cry, but crying seemed superfluous anyway, with so much water around. So she just made Riley hang her head a little and let her shoulders droop. Maybe that would shield her from the brunt of the weather. For what that was worth, since she was _already_ sick.

"Try to keep her…" Joy called over from behind her, but had to sneeze in mid-sentence. "…to keep her h-happy," she finished somewhat lamely.

Sadness drew her brows together in frustration. How was she supposed to do that?

"And safe!" Fear added through a small coughing fit.

"And _clean_!" Disgust wailed. It sounded somewhat muffled - she had probably misused her blanket as a makeshift cocoon to shield herself from the situation.

"What are you _waiting_ for?" Anger shouted again.

Sadness could feel her eyes welling up with tears. It wasn't her fault the others couldn't help Riley themselves!

Blindly pushing some button, she could hear Riley sniffle just as she passed the little pond beside her home. Great, now Riley was feeling down. With a little luck, the others would mistake it as a symptom of the cold. Sadness was painfully aware of them moaning and chattering behind her, and even more painfully aware of Joy's voice not being part of the conversation.

"I'm home," Riley called out to the house at large as she closed the door behind herself and then started peeling off her completely drenched rain coat, eliciting a groan from Disgust.

Sadness had no idea how to handle the situation, but she couldn't exactly ask the others for help - and didn't _want_ to. It was so rare for them to leave her in charge! Still, she didn't exactly look forward to facing this alone, either. She knew Dad was still at work at this time of day, but maybe Mom could help?

And sure enough, just then, Mom poked her head out of the open kitchen door. "Riley, good to see… you were out in this weather without an umbrella?"

"I'm sorry," Fear muttered weakly from the sofa, but Sadness couldn't find it in herself to fault him. Right now, she was just glad that Mom was there for support, so as soon as Riley had put away her coat, Sadness made her wrap Mom in a big embrace.

Mom returned the gesture for a moment, despite her clothes probably getting a little damp, but then she pulled away to put a hand on Riley's forehead. "Hm, I don't think you have a fever, but we'd better get you warm. You should go and take a bath, and when you're done, I'll have some hot cocoa ready for you!"

"What about homework?" Riley asked, always the responsible child.

But Mom gently caressed her cheek with a small smile. "Don't you worry about that for now, sweetie. Looks like you're coming down with something, and it's the weekend anyway. I think you should just go to bed early today, and we'll go over your homework together tomorrow. How's that sound?"

Sadness breathed a small smile of relief. Bath time. She could handle this. She'd done it before. There wasn't much use in making Riley feel anything as she went through everyday motions she knew by heart, even when she kept sniffling and fighting off small dizzy spells. This was easy. So Sadness just did what was absolutely necessary. A soft press of a button here, a slight pull of a lever there…

A faintly glowing hand sneaking its way past her to reach the console made her lose all her sudden confidence.

"You should go easy on yourself," Sadness muttered gloomily as she was shoved out of the way by Joy with a gentle, yet firm push.

"We can't afford her getting depressed about this!" Joy argued as she took control of the console, and Sadness saw Riley start to play with the foam on her bubble bath almost deliriously. It was crystal clear that Joy wasn't fit to do her job right now, whichever way you looked at it.

Sadness wasn't the one who had to point it out, though, for Anger had wandered over as well to forcibly haul Joy back to the sofa by her dress the way he had done with Fear. "Leave the poor girl alone!" he growled. "She can do without being hyper for once!"

"Sadness has got this, right?" Fear called over, then coughed again, and Sadness couldn't quite enjoy the unexpected support. He probably thought it made sense for her to stay in charge now, so that Riley memorized sickness as something sad and tried harder to avoid it in the future.

Surprisingly, Joy relented and allowed herself to be dragged back to rejoin the others on the sofa, which said a lot about how bad her condition truly was.

After this incident, Sadness actually stayed at the console undisturbed for a while, and she cherished every second of it, enjoyed the rare time alone with Riley until the girl was dry and warm again, sipping a large cup of steaming cocoa, and sitting snuggled into a fluffy blanket on the couch, next to Mom who had an arm around her and was just turning on one of Riley's favorite animated movies.

Sadness bit her lip. She knew Riley loved this movie, so maybe it should be Joy who should drive as she watched it? But Joy wasn't well, and Sadness suspected that Riley was exhausted, anyway. And sure enough, now her eyes started slowly drifting closed, so Sadness saw to it that the girl comfortably rested her head against Mom's shoulder, and then, reasonably certain that nothing would happen for a while, she turned away from the console for now to check on the others.

"Well, so far, so good," Joy greeted as Sadness approached them. "If we can get her to bed safely, then tomorrow won't be _quite_ as depressing as it looks right now."

"Yeah, I'm giddy with excitement," Anger barked.

Sadness tried not to let the "we" get to her. _She_ had taken care of Riley this afternoon, even if she was the only one who seemed to realize that.

"How are a burning throat and nasal secretions _not_ depressing?" Disgust also snapped from within her blanket.

"I'm sorry," Fear muttered around his stuffy nose. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is all my fault. I didn't keep her safe." He kept rocking back and forth, clutching his cup to himself with both hands, looking miserable enough that Sadness might have mistaken him for a different Emotion entirely if she hadn't known better.

"Oh, _cheer_ up, Fear!" Joy scolded him, nudging his shoulder and almost making him spill the contents of his cup all over himself. "At least we're warm and drinking hot cocoa, right?"

Sadness couldn't find it in herself to point out that it hadn't been Fear's fault at all; it had been Joy's for brightly rushing out to school in the morning, and for dismissing his suggestion to take the cloud cover as a cue to bring an umbrella. Saying this _might_ cheer Fear up, but it would most certainly drag Joy down, and Sadness just didn't want to risk that. As overbearing as Joy could be, she _did_ keep everyone's spirits up most of the time.

Except that, right now, everyone was sullen, including Joy despite her best efforts, and it was getting to Sadness, too. She really hated seeing them like this. Of course she couldn't possibly miss the irony of _her_ wanting the _others_ to be more positive, but so it was.

"Well… as long as Mom is there to care about us, we should be fine, right?" she spoke up timidly.

And then found herself smiling a little when they all slightly raised their heads in wonder, as if they hadn't even thought of that.

"I guess so," Fear muttered pensively, staring into his cup as if trying to find the meaning of the universe at the bottom. "She always does look out for Riley."

"She'd better," Anger grumbled, but the flame on his head was dying down a little.

"Maybe if we're taken care of, that'll speed up the nauseating part of it…" Disgust muttered as she emerged from her self-made sanctuary layer by layer.

Joy just sneezed.

The small smile never left Sadness's face, though. She had a feeling that the others would be fine now.

Sometimes, she wished Joy could see how important things like these were. No, neither one of them was happy right now. But from time to time, it was enough to recognize a situation for what it was, and to accept that you couldn't change it.

That way, maybe you couldn't be happy all the time. But at least it would get you through the difficult things, too.

* * *

 **Note:** I'm pretty sure that something along these lines is gonna turn out to be Sadness's role. Or at least that's what _I_ think she's there for.

By the way - I'm aware that Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera said that physical things didn't affect the Emotions. However, their example was brain surgery, which is something during which Riley would be unconscious. But as we know, a Brain Freeze definitely affects them, so I'm going with "whatever has a direct effect on Riley's state of mind has one on her Emotions, too" as my headcanon.

Feedback is welcome! :) We "Insiders" need to stick together, right?


End file.
